Team Pet: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

 

 

 

 

[[Gratuitous Animal Sidekick]] is a special category of this, often used in an [[Animated Adaptation]] of a live-action show. See also [[Intellectual Animal]], [[Nearly-Normal Animal]], [[Talking Animal]], and [[Timmy in a Well]].

 

{{examples}}

== Anime & Manga ==

* Kon the mod-soul in ''[[Bleach]]'', who insists on being taken seriously, since he has the duty of possessing Ichigo's body when he's in shinigami form. He seldom is, since he normally inhabits the body of a plush lion.

* In early episodes of ''[[Pokémon (anime)|Pokémon]]'', Pikachu, when not in battle, was usually found doing something goofy while the human characters were dealing with the situation. This was later dropped with both his and Ash's maturity.

* ''[[Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple]]'' has Shigure's pet mouse Tochumaru. It happens to be a competent martial artist.

* Shiina in the ''[[Vampire Princess Miyu]]'' TV series is both Miyu's talking pet of sorts and a Shinma with a ''very'' powerful eyesight.

{{quote|'''Soul:''' Anyone want the sexy kitty? She's free.}}

* ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]'' gives us Chamo, the talking [[Weasel Mascot|ermine]]. He's also a bit of a mentor, though.

* ''[[Future GPX Cyber Formula]]'' has V-8 (Asuka's pet dog) to the Sugo Asurada team.

* Ryo-Ohki from [[Tenchi Muyo!]] certainly belongs here, when she's not a [[Cool Starship]].

* Akamaru from [[Naruto]] serves as the team pet for his team.

* Don't forget about Kirara from ''[[Inuyasha]]'', Sango's two-tailed demon cat who can go from a [[Cute Kitten|tiny kitty]] from a [[Mega Neko|huge fanged feline]] who can fly.

* [[Hana Kimi]] has Yūjirō.

* Kyubey from ''[[Puella Magi Madoka Magica]]''. {{spoiler|When he's not being the [[Big Bad]].}}

** If Kyubey counts, then every [[Magical Girl]]'s [[Mentor Mascot]] and [[Weasel Mascot]] would count, especially since Kyubey doesn't do anything useful in combats aside from [[Mr. Exposition|talking.]]

* Printemps, Jeudi's pet cockatoo in ''[[Honoo no Alpen Rose]]''.

* ''[[Kuroko no Basuke]]'' has Tetsuya #2, a dog. It was adopted by the Seirin High Basketball Club, and named after the main character, Kuroko Tetsuya, for their identical eyes, [[The Stoic|and expression, or lack thereof]].

 

** To be fair, Deadpool has never been au fait on the distinction between "friendship" and "Stockholm Syndrome". See Weasel, Blind Al, etc.

* X-Men have Lockheed, when Kitty Pryde is on the team, most of the time.

*** He can also speak {{spoiler|and has actually been spying on the X-Men, albeit benevolently, for quite some time}}.

**** Hardly a subversion. Whoever said that a Team Pet has to be harmless? Lockheed is certainly goofy, though, at least in appearance (and for this Troper, quite intensely irritating, to the point of being [[The Scrappy]] as much as a Team Pet. Of course, that's frequently a damn fine line).

* [[Great Lakes Avengers]] have [[Squirrel Girl]] as their Team Pet, being the youngest, goofiest and least experienced member who [[What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?|has a tail and talks to squirrels]]. But if you want to get technical, it's really Squirrel Girl's sidekick <s>Monkey Joe</s> Tippy-Toe, who's a full member of the group, despite being a squirrel. Yes, that kind of [http://wikipedia.org/wiki/Squirrel squirrel].

** Katten Jansson and Husmusen are also usually [[Those Two Guys]] when they do not star in the story.

** Batman gets a Great Dane puppy in The [[New 52]] version of Batman and Robin named [[Titus Andronicus (theatre)|Titus]]

* Glomulus the Cleaner Slug for the [[Green Lantern|Orange Lantern Corps]].

* Subverted at least twice in the [[Discworld]] series, once with the Luggage (an [[Amusing Alien]] which actually ''hates'' its companions and every other life form, aside from its owner {{spoiler|and an occasional [[Love Interest]]}}), and again with Quoth the Raven and the Death of Rats, who tend to constitute a Tag-Team Pet between the pair of them.

* ''Villainous'' example- Nagini from [[Harry Potter]], the giant snake who is almost always in the company of her master, [[Big Bad|Lord Voldemort]], and his Death Eaters. Nagini is, however, very dangerous in her own right (being, after all, a huge and very poisonous snake), and {{spoiler|she's also a living [[Soul Jar]] for Voldemort}}.

* ''[[Malevil]]'' has Craa, a raven spotted raiding the castle's wheat fields. Though a pest, they name and feed him as he's the only wild animal they've seen since [[World War III]].

 

* [[Super Sentai]] has a few of these, most notably IC the cyborg dog from ''[[Denshi Sentai Denziman]]'' who {{spoiler|dies by using himself as a power circuit for the [[Humongous Mecha]], but gives the team one final [[Tear Jerker]] message}}.

* ''[[Lexx]]'' had 790 the robot head (and briefly, Squish the cluster lizard).

* Classic ''[[Doctor Who]]'' had K-9.

* In ''[[Primeval]]'' we get Rex, a Coelurosauravus from the Permian anomaly. He doesn't serve much purpose, except to hang out and look cute, possibly to counter all of the [[Nightmare Fuel]].

* ''[[Human Target]]'' has Carmine the Rottweiler.

* ''[[Torchwood]]'' has Myfanwy the pterodactyl.

* [[Sublime]] had Louie Dog, the beloved Dalmatian of the late Bradley Nowell, who frequently joined the band on stage.

 

 

== Video Games ==

* Sazh's Chocobo chick in ''[[Final Fantasy XIII]]''.

* [[Swiss Army Weapon]] Jack in ''[[Gears of War]]''.

* Boo in both the ''[[Baldur's Gate]]'' games was something of a pet if Minsc was in your group, though he was little more than an annoyance to many players as he took up a valuable quick item slot.

** In ''[[Megatokyo]]'', a hamster is named Boo in honour of Minsc's pet.

* Cupil from ''[[Skies of Arcadia]]'' fills this role, but doubles as Fina's weapon. To a lesser extent, the "Jester" Pow, who's Vyse's <s>dog</s> [[Call a Rabbit a Smeerp|huskra]].

* Hans in ''[[Valkyria Chronicles]]'', a (vestigially) winged pig. Exists mostly to look [[Even the Dog Is Ashamed|embarrassed]] when the protagonist flubs romantic moments in cut scenes.

** And, apart from being the [[McGuffin]] at the end of one chapter, he doesn't have any impact on the story at all. And, the best that the main character can get out of his [[Relationship Values]] with Muppy? ''A pinky swear''. No, really.

* ''[[Dragon Age]]: Origins'' has a Mabari Hound that the player names themselves. All the characters that join you like the dog, even the less pleasant characters like Morrigan, Sten or {{spoiler|Loghain}}.

** OTOH, Oghren seems to dislike him (becomes more obvious when he's drunk). Alistair, of all people, also has a knack for pissing off Dog. Getting too close to his food, teasing him about eating human flesh, etc. At one point, the Grey Warden can remind him that Dog is a ''warhound'' and not a puppy to be teased. The "dialogue" Alistair has with Dog also doesn't seem terribly friendly either.

*** Oghren's just annoyed that Dog doesn't agree that his wearing a saddle and serving as Oghren's personal cavalry mount is a good idea.

* Nall and Ruby of the ''[[Lunar]]'' series.

* Ricky [[Everything's Better with Monkeys|the monkey]] from ''[[Dubloon]]''.

* In ''[[Mother 3]]'', one of the party members is the main character's dog, [[Loyal Animal Companion|Boney]], who is also the only character besides main character Lucas to appear in every chapter.

** ''[[Dragon Quest VIII]]'' has Munchie, [[The Hero]]'s rat pet that is very smart. It can be used to clear curtain puzzles in a dungeon. {{spoiler|It turns out very latter that Munchie is [[The Hero]]'s ancestor in disguise.}}

* Pochi, the family's pet monster from ''[[Legacy of the Wizard]]''.

== Web Comics ==

* Parodied in the hiatused webcomic ''[[RPG World]]'' by the character Dragobo, a portmaneau character based on a dragon and a chocobo.

* The [http://exterminatusnow.comicgenesis.com/d/20040528.html May 28, 2004 strip] of ''[[Exterminatus Now]]'' sees Virus bring a [[Sonic the Hedgehog|Chao]] to the team, [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshading]] its role in the process, which is soon followed with a [http://exterminatusnow.comicgenesis.com/d/20040611.html discussion on what to name it]. Seven strips after its introduction, it meets a demon, [http://exterminatusnow.comicgenesis.com/d/20040716.html undergoes a radical transformation], and becomes a bite-sized killing machine. In [http://exterminatusnow.comicgenesis.com/d/20040723.html the following strip], it is christened "Blasphemy."

* In ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'', the non-human members of the main cast (Bun-Bun, Kiki, and Aylee) tend to fill this role, each in varying degrees (though not so much Aylee now that she's taken a mostly human form).

** Bun-Bun is actually a pardoy of this trope as he was specifically bought by Torg so the strip could have a cute animal...said cute animal is a murderous criminal that can take care of himself and seemingly only hangs around Torg for free food and lodging and whom orginially Torg wanted dead and/or gone (although it IS later revealed he has grown to actually really care about the main cast much later in the strip and fairly early on Torg was shown to clearly miss Bun-Bun when he was AWOL for a while). Kiki on the other hand plays this trope very straight.

* Snookums the tentacle bunny in ''[[The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob]]'', although he's mainly Molly's pet. It's notable that Molly herself started out as Bob's pet, before she turned out to be sentient and grew to human size.

* In ''[[The Order of the Stick|Order of the Stick]]'', Mr. Scruffy the cat becomes the Team Pet once adopted by Belkar. It could be argued that Blackwing, Vaarsuvius' raven [[Familiar]], occupied the role before, but he's more of an [[Intellectual Animal]], and now a full character in his own right.

 

== [[Web Original]] ==

 

 

== Western Animation ==

* Snarf from ''[[Thundercats]]'' is pretty well the epitome of this trope. Utterly useless in a fight except against the weakest of minions, and tends to serve as weak comedy relief. Subverted only slightly in that Snarf is actually the nanny for Lion-O before he wakes up all growed-up on Third Earth.

* Momo in ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]'' is a flying [[Mix-and-Match Critters|bat-like lemur]]. In contrast, Appa is a 10-ton flying bison who has been subject to serious [[A Day in the Limelight|personalized stories]] and has a strong century-long bond with the titular character, making him more of a life-long companion than a Team Pet. Momo's presence or absence is a firm indicator to how light-hearted and whimsical or serious and edgy the current story is. To compound to it all, his character was originally designed to be a little robot named "MOMO 3" (when [[What Could Have Been|the original draft set the series in a futuristic environment]]) and Co-creator Byan Konietzko has admitted that he based him on his childhood cat Buddy.

** In the [[Sequel Series]], The Legend of Korra, the two team pets tradition continues with Pabu, the fire ferret (red panda/ferret hybrid) and Korra's polarbear-dog, Naga.

* Radarr is just another element of the [[Cliché Storm]] that is ''[[Storm Hawks]]''. Pun unintended.

** Spike and Daniel are the most blatant examples. Apparently, this trope is genetic.

** In ''[[Transformers Prime]]'', most of the team gets their own ''individual'' pet. Bulkhead has Miko, Arcee has Jack, and Bumblebee has Rafael, and Optimus has a feral-cat-that-you-sometimes-leave-food-outside-for relationship with Agent Fowler. When Wheeljack arrives, Miko comments that "he'll need his own [pet] human".

* Faffy from ''[[Dave the Barbarian]]'' is a spoof of these type of creatures.

* Elvis from ''[[Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kids]]'', whose major plot purpose is to cause Mr. Socrates to sneeze.

* Uni the baby unicorn from the ''[[Dungeons and Dragons (animation)|Dungeons & Dragons]]'' cartoon.

* Lily and Sparkles from ''[[Barbie and the Diamond Castle]]''.

* It would really be a disservice to call [[Godzilla]] a team pet in ''[[Godzilla: The Series]]''; the crew prefer "[[The Big Guy]]". They have [[Robot Buddy|N.I.G.E.L]] for that.

* [[Scooby-Doo (animation)|Scooby Doo]] could very well have been the [[Trope Maker]].

* Rufus the naked mole rat in ''[[Kim Possible]]''.

* Chuchu, the family dog on ''[[The Amazing Chan and The Chan Clan]]''.

* Kuma in ''[[Pole Position (animation)|Pole Position]]''.

* Bandit in ANY incarnation of ''[[Jonny Quest]]''.

* In ''[[Futurama]]'' Nibbler is the Team Pet, even if he is an [[Amusing Alien]] and [[Intellectual Animal]].

* ''[[Bubble Guppies]]'' has one in the form of Bubble Puppy.

* Elmo, Augie's bulldog on ''[[The Funky Phantom]]'', is usually engaged in a battle of wits with Mudsy's cat Boo.

* Braveheart, the misnamed St. Bernard on ''[[Inch High, Private Eye|Inch High Private Eye]].''

* The parody series ''[[The Incredibles|The Adventures of Mr. Incredible]]'' had Mr. Skipperdoo, a mostly useless, bespectacled rabbit.

* ''[[The Secret Saturdays]]'': Zak has three Team Pets, all of them cryptids, including a 7-foot tall "gorilla-cat" named Fisk, a komodo dragon (named, you guessed it, Komodo), and a pterosaur named Zon. Unlike most team pets, Zak treats them like their part of his family, including Fisk, whom he likens to an adopted brother

* Bronx in ''[[Gargoyles]]'' is the pet of the gargoyle team, and their equivalent of a [[All Animals Are Dogs|dog]].

* ''[[Young Justice (animation)|Young Justice]]'' has both Sphere the supercycle and Wolf the um, [[Big Badass Wolf]]. They both help in missions.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Video Game Characters]]

[[Category:Token Index]]

[[Category:Five-Man Band]]